Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

App Store on iOS 14.6 sends every tap you make in the app to Apple

twitter.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 205 posts

Re: App Store on iOS 14.6 sends every tap you make in the app to Apple

#91

Post by Eisenstein »

altairprime wrote: post #27
2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure they do. What if they switch accounts, usernames, phones, etc. More data is better.

This argument’s logical error is presenting unprovable beliefs as if they were facts. Apple may or may not care if users switch accounts. Only Apple confidential knowledge can prove or disprove this argument with certainty. In the absence of certainty, a best-faith effort must be made to determine whether their actions support or contradict these assertions. The claim “Sure they do” is unsupported both by available e…

This argument’s logical error is approaching a response to a statements as if it exists in isolation.

The person you are replying to was merely offering an example to contradict a blanket statement without a factual basis, essentially that Apple does not track users because the user is already logged in. The respondent presented a situation in which that reason would not apply.

Also, your way of engaging people in this way is annoying -- specifically starting every reply with 'This argument’s logical error' and then coming up with a seems-right-at-a-glance breakdown of their argument's faults. Are you doing it on purpose to annoy people?

Re: App Store on iOS 14.6 sends every tap you make in the app to Apple

#92

Post by dwaite »

mensetmanusman wrote: post #31

After iOS 16 Apple asks for ‘analytics’ to improve iOS. It is disingenuous of them to use the word ‘Tracking’ for everyone else and ‘experience improving’ for themselves.

You are still allowed to log into a google account. You are still allowed to set session cookies.

The text of the prompt people are talking about is "Allow MyApp to track your activity across other companies' apps and websites".

Third party tracking mandates permission. First party tracking and data sharing mandate disclosure.

Re: App Store on iOS 14.6 sends every tap you make in the app to Apple

#93

Post by carstenhag »

heavyset_go wrote: post #52
digitaltrees wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is malicious about monitoring use to provide a better product in service of users?

Did you clearly ask the users if you can do it? If not, there's probably a reason why not, because users wouldn't like it if they found out they were being recorded.

Imo, as long as you clearly say "here's the choice: opt in or opt out, we are doing XYZ" in clear words, it's fair.

It doesn't really matter whether on each tap you fire a specific event ("TapOnList", "TapOnPurchase") or whether you log all app interactions (where the user taps, are they going around the app not finding something?). Or does it? Where do you cross the line?

If this app would be Facebook I would see your grievances - devs could see personal data. But let's assume it's an app where there's barely any personal data, or specific views do not have this logging enabled.

Re: App Store on iOS 14.6 sends every tap you make in the app to Apple

#94

Post by recursive »

tyfon wrote: post #89
iLoveOncall wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That it's on your own app where you anyway know exactly which backend endpoint has been called by the user does. I really don't get the outrage about that, it's something that has existed for 15 or 20 years at least and is used a lot on most websites you go on. What private information do you think is sent to the vendor that would not be otherwise?

This attitude is why I hardly have any native apps on my phone and use a browser with ublock origin for it. You can see how valuable this tracking is by the amount of websites begging you to install their native apps. No thanks!

Websites can still track everywhere you're tapping though. Wasn't that the original scare?

Re: App Store on iOS 14.6 sends every tap you make in the app to Apple

#95

Post by interpol_p »

mensetmanusman wrote: post #31

After iOS 16 Apple asks for ‘analytics’ to improve iOS. It is disingenuous of them to use the word ‘Tracking’ for everyone else and ‘experience improving’ for themselves.

This is not what they are doing, though. As far as I can tell, Apple never does the kind of "Tracking" that is reserved for that popup — namely, using a unique identifier to track a user across apps & sites not owned by Apple

The Tracking popup requests that the user allows an application to send a unique identifier which can be correlated by other apps, advertising networks, social media platforms (eg. like buttons, embeds, etc), in order to correlate a user's identity between different properties on the web in order to personalise advertising. AFAIK Apple does not participate in this form of tracking

Apple does ask users if they want to opt-in to analytics (for Apple) and separately for third-party developers. This refers to allowing an application to submit analytics data purely for that application or for the operating system and not in a way which tracks the user between apps owned by different companies

In this case Apple is violating their own opt-in analytics policy with regards to the App Store application. It appears to be collecting analytics data even when a user has opted out of submitting analytics

Re: App Store on iOS 14.6 sends every tap you make in the app to Apple

#96

Post by Vt71fcAqt7 »

heywoodlh wrote: post #90
Vt71fcAqt7 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never said Google or android protect users privacy. Android violating users privacy is not to the exclusion of Apple doing the same even if to a lesser extent. Everyone knows how bad android is this respect. Yet there is this idea that Apple does care about users' privacy, and won't sell users' data, with apple themselves saying things like: >Your personal data should always be protected on your device and never sh…

Ah, yeah, I can see what you mean. Apple is definitely hypocritical, and it bugs me how they handle certain aspects of privacy. And the overzealous Apple crowd often behaves as though privacy is achieved just because they're using Apple products. iMessage is perhaps the most annoying offender to me because it's not end-to-end encrypted if iCloud backups are enabled -- meaning that my iMessage conversations have a hig…

If we define bastion to be that way then sure. I was using this definition:

>an institution, place, or person strongly defending or upholding particular principles, attitudes, or activities.

>I would love to see Linux become more mainstream in the mobile space but I don't think it ever will, unfortunately (even though Android runs a Linux kernel, I don't really consider it Linux).

You may be interested in Nestbox[0] (not affiliated) which makes use of the madatory kvm in android 13 assuming latest kernel to run Linux in a vm with no root on android on pixel 6 and 7

[0]https://www.patreon.com/posts/74333551

https://twitter.com/kdrag0n/status/1589542963629395970

Re: App Store on iOS 14.6 sends every tap you make in the app to Apple

#97

Post by tyfon »

recursive wrote: post #94
tyfon wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This attitude is why I hardly have any native apps on my phone and use a browser with ublock origin for it. You can see how valuable this tracking is by the amount of websites begging you to install their native apps. No thanks!

Websites can still track everywhere you're tapping though. Wasn't that the original scare?

Yeah I know they do, but websites can collect much less data than native apps.

I just try to minimize it.

Re: App Store on iOS 14.6 sends every tap you make in the app to Apple

#98

Post by krono »

cmeacham98 wrote: post #87
krono wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights says something about arbitrary interference in a person's privacy not being okay, so there's that. https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-huma...

Not convinced. By your logic, an nginx log with your IP in it is a similarly egregious and unethical privacy violation. If you're going to commit to "all forms of tracking are bad no matter what" I'm going to need stronger evidence than a link a page on the UN's website.

Saving that IP to the webserver's log is rather necessary for it to function, whereas these detailed records of user behaviour can almost never be.

Just because someone uses an application, does not mean you "own" them and have a moral right to freely collect and do whatever you want with records of their behaviour. Also it's just weird.

Re: App Store on iOS 14.6 sends every tap you make in the app to Apple

#99

Post by scarface74 »

tyfon wrote: post #89
iLoveOncall wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That it's on your own app where you anyway know exactly which backend endpoint has been called by the user does. I really don't get the outrage about that, it's something that has existed for 15 or 20 years at least and is used a lot on most websites you go on. What private information do you think is sent to the vendor that would not be otherwise?

This attitude is why I hardly have any native apps on my phone and use a browser with ublock origin for it. You can see how valuable this tracking is by the amount of websites begging you to install their native apps. No thanks!

So you don’t use native apps because they can track everything you do in the app so you use websites that can track everything you do on their site?

Re: App Store on iOS 14.6 sends every tap you make in the app to Apple

#100

Post by scarface74 »

tyfon wrote: post #97
recursive wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Websites can still track everywhere you're tapping though. Wasn't that the original scare?

Yeah I know they do, but websites can collect much less data than native apps. I just try to minimize it.

What data can apps collect without you giving them permission that websites can’t?
Post reply on HN